There are a lot of investing strategies that can make you money on Wall Street. Buying dividend stocks tends to be one of the smartest and safest ways to grow your wealth.

Publicly traded companies that pay a regular dividend are usually profitable, offer transparent long-term growth outlooks, and are time-tested. In other words, they're businesses that have demonstrated their staying power to investors through thick and thin.

Furthermore, income stocks have handily outperformed over the long run. According to a 2013 report from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, a division of money-center bank JPMorgan Chase, publicly traded companies that initiated and grew their payouts between 1972 and 2012 produced an annualized return of 9.5%. That's compared to a meager 1.6% annualized return for publicly traded companies that didn't offer a payout over the same four-decade timeline.

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Source Fool.com